Law & Order Spinning Off Another Series To A Totally New City
A new Law & Order spinoff, Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, is on the way.
Over the years, the hit NBC show Law & Order has had a number of spinoffs, including SVU and Criminal Intent. However, most of those spinoffs had something in common: despite featuring new characters, the shows and stories were typically set in New York City. However, Variety reports that the show will be getting a spinoff shot and set in Canada called Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent.
If you’re a longtime fan of the franchise, it may be difficult to imagine a Law & Order show set outside of New York: as international audiences already know, this isn’t the first time the Law & Order formula was applied to a different setting altogether. For example, the show has had a Russian version called Law & Order: Division of Field Investigations and a British version called Law & Order: UK. There was even a French version called Paris enquêtes criminelles (which translates to “Paris Criminal Investigations”), so we’ll add that to the list of favorite French translations (ok, the only other thing on the list is “royale with cheese”).
Interestingly, it looks like Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent is going to follow the more modern television model of releasing a limited number of episodes. The first season will debut in Spring 2024 and consist of ten hour-long episodes, which is in stark contrast to the original Criminal Intent spinoff, which had 21-23 episodes for its first seven seasons. Of course, Criminal Intent eventually began tapering off until it only had eight episodes in its final season, so the new spinoff is certainly in line with the end of the original show.
Speaking of the original show, one of the things that made Law & Order: Criminal Intent so captivating was that it had future Daredevil star Vincent D’Onofrio as its primary star. He added a powerful intensity to a series that has often been bogged down by boring procedural action. The show even briefly featured Jurassic Park star Jeff Goldblum, who added his usual spark of personality to each of his episodes.
While the original Law & Order: Criminal Intent obviously had a stellar cast over the years, the Canadian spinoff has not made any casting announcements just yet. With that being said, Citytv announced that the show will be entirely written and produced by Canadians and will star a Canadian cast. While that doesn’t exactly narrow things down, it does mean that Canadian fans won’t necessarily have to worry about the show bringing in any American actors (such as disgraced franchise veteran Chris Noth) as ringers.
Ultimately, while we don’t yet know that much about Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, it sounds like it will have much of what made the original shows such a success. If nothing else, the change in venue sounds exciting because whether you live in New York or not, you can only watch so many episodes of this decades-long franchise set in that familiar area before getting bored. With a new setting and a new cast, this spinoff has a lot of potential, but we have one simple request: don’t lose that famous “doink-doink” sound from the opening.
